Lawrence General Hospital Improves To 'B' Safety Grade

NORTH ANDOVER, MA — Lawrence General Hospital received a B grade in hospital safety, according to new fall 2019 ratings released Thursday by the Leapfrog Group. The nonprofit group found that of the more than 2,600 hospitals graded in the country, 33 percent earned an A grade, a 1 percent increase from the last round of safety grades, released in Spring 2019. Lawrence General's B grade marks an improvement over a C grade received in the spring 2019 report.

Lawrence General lost marks on safety regarding a couple of infections, including infections on the surgical site after colon surgery, problems with surgery like "death from serious treatable complications," and safety problems like bed sores and dangerous falls.

"We’re pleased that our Leapfrog safety grade for the Fall of 2019 reflects some very focused work on quality and safety improvement outcomes at Lawrence General since the last reporting period," said Jill McDonald Halsey, a hospital spokeswoman. "We are celebrating that success and continuing to focus on further improvement."

McDonald Halsey said that part of the data reflected in the rating goes back as far as 2016, and that they have made improvements since then that they expect to see reflected in future grades.

"Not included in the current rating period are the results of successful surgical infection-prevention protocols; new skin care assessments, protocols and devices to reduce pressure ulcers; and mobility assistive devices, fall risk protocols and other measures to reduce patient falls," McDonald Halsey said.

In 2019, the spokeswoman said, improvements include a "new integrated electronic medical record system," enhanced incident reporting, and "promoting a culture of safety"

The Leapfrog Group explains that its rating system is focused entirely on errors, accidents, injuries and infections. The hospital safety grades are released by the nonprofit group twice a year, in the spring and in the fall.

Lawrence received a C in spring 2019 and fall 2018, but an A in spring 2018.

Maine, Utah, Virginia, Oregon and North Carolina had the highest percentage of hospitals that received an A grade. Three states — Wyoming, Alaska and North Dakota — did not have a single hospital that received an A grade.

The release of the Fall 2019 safety grades coincides with the 20th anniversary of a published report that revealed nearly 100,000 lives are lost every year because of preventable medical errors.

“In stark contrast to 20 years ago, we’re now able to pinpoint where the problems are, and that allows us to grade hospitals,” Leah Binder, president and CEO of The Leapfrog Group, said in a press release. “It also allows us to better track progress. Encouragingly, we are seeing fewer deaths from the preventable errors we monitor in our grading process.”

Leapfrog assigns A, B, C, D and F letter grades to general acute-care hospitals in the United States. Leapfrog explains that the safety grade includes performance measures taken from federal government data and the group’s own hospital survey to “produce a single letter grade representing a hospital’s overall performance in keeping patients safe from preventable harm and medical errors.” The group relies on a panel of experts to select the measures used in the methodology and to develop a scoring system. (You can read more about the letter grades here.)

Christopher Huffaker can be reached at chris.huffaker@patch.com and 412-265-8353.